When I was working on the soundtrack, I decided to write all the different sections of music for what were basically all chamber ensembles: a Brass quintet (as in the above), a Clarinet Quartet, a String Quartet (2 Violins, Cello, Bass), etc. This divided up the work among my musicians, and made scheduling easier. (It was also easier to get my composing-head around.) When it was time to record, I would thus be conducting 4-6 people, and we would take about an hour or an hour and a half to sight-read/rehearse/record, and people who had solos did them after everything else was done. The exceptions were the percussion (mostly recorded separately and edited in) and the harp/dulcimer pieces (which were recorded at home and played by Josiah and Lydia). When I had all my recordings done, I just used Josiah’s movie editing program to cut/edit/splice and line them up with the movie. In the end, I had about an hour’s worth of music, since I didn’t leave much silence in the film. Oh well – maybe next time!

End note: “an hour’s worth” – according to spellchecker this expression must be spelled with an h’apostrophe. Thus we may see that it really means “the worth of an hour.”